Monday, 4 April 2011

This is a simple stir fry but the recipe is not that common. The original recipe is from Ching Imperial kitchen specially made for Empress Dowager Cixi as condiment or side dish. Traditional raw vegetable pickle was normally served but because Doweger had a tender tummy, her chef made this cooked condiment/side chao hwang gua jiang, specially to whet her appetite so she could enjoy the rest of her meal.

This stir fry recipe and ingredients are really simple; main ingredients are pork, cucumber and yellow bean sauce.
I bought this tub of yellow bean sauce sometime ago been meaning to road test this. The English name for this sauce is soy bean paste but in Chinese it is douban jiang 豆瓣醬 (confusing?). This douban jiang is not the same Sichuan chilli bean paste. There is no chilli it is just fermented soy beans i.e. yellow bean sauce. The sauce is much darker than most yellow bean sauces I have come across. Nice fermented soy fragrance and quite tasty with an undertone of fermented black beans, dousi.

I used this fermented bean paste for this stir fry recipe. The pork and cucumber coated with the sauce was tasty, full of flavour and cucumber was crunchy. I have it with plain rice and nothing else. Simple meal.

Regarding the sauce. I will buy this green and yellow tub sauce again. I like it. If you are interested to get a tub, most big Chinese supermarkets in London will have it or online from Wai yee Hong. (I am not making a advertising promotion for this product or where this can be sourced. I just like to spread the word when I find an ingredient I like)

Cut the cucumber lengthwise into quarters. Trim off the soft core. Cut the cucumber into 1 - 1.5cm pieces. Mix with salt and leave it for about 15 - 20 minutes to draw out some of the juice. Rinse the cucumber to remove salt. Drain.

Stir fry the pork fat with a little cooking oil till most of the fat is rendered and pork fat is brown in colour. Add lean pork, stir fry till lightly browned.

Add spring onion and ginger. Continue stirring for a little while.

Turn heat down to medium. Add yellow bean sauce stir then add dash of cooking wine. Keep stirring till fragrant. Make sure the heat is not too strong or the bean sauce will stick to the wok and becoming burnt.

Stir in the cucumber, stir till warm through and finally add some sugar to taste.

3 comments:

First time I tried stir-fried cucumber, but I'm growing a Chinese variety so I thought I'd give it a whirl. I used this recipe as a starting point because I just happened to have a different brand of this type of bean sauce. Stir-fried cucumber is surprisingly good, and so is this variety of bean sauce that you call yellow. I'll be trying stir-fried cucumbers again very soon. I've got LOTS of them to eat! Thanks for the recipe. :)